President Donald Trump does not appear to understand how grocery stores work

President Donald Trump, attempting to clarify earlier statements by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, himself a billionaire, about how federal workers should make do without paychecks revealed his apparent misunderstanding of how grocery stores work.

Ross told CNBC earlier Thursday he did not understand why furloughed federal workers were heading to food banks and not taking advantage of low or no-interest loans offered by banks to help them through the government shutdown.

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"Well, I know they are, and I don't really quite understand why," Ross said. "The obligations that they would undertake, say borrowing from a bank or a credit union, are, in effect, federally guaranteed. So the 30 days of pay that some people will be out ... there's no real reason why they shouldn't be able to get a loan against it."

Trump was asked about the comments by a reporter during a televised news conference later in the day.

"Perhaps he should have said it differently. Local people know who they are when they go for groceries and everything else, and I think what Wilbur was probably trying to say is that they will work along," the president said. He added that Ross has "done a great job."

Suffice it to say in 2019, most grocery stores do not extend store credit to customers who cannot pay for food.

"Sounds like someone who never bought his own groceries," Ellen Leonida, a federal public defender told the San Francisco Chronicle. "It's an offensive thing to say. Groceries aren't free."

In a subsequent interview with Bloomberg, Ross said he was "painfully aware" that workers were suffering hardships. He added that in his earlier remarks, he'd been trying to let workers know that credit union loans were available for those "experiencing liquidity crises" — hardly the language of those living paycheck to paycheck.


"Is this the 'Let them eat cake' kind of attitude?" said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. "Or call your father for money?" With her comments, the speaker evoked Marie Antoinette and took an indirect jab at Trump for inheriting family money.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Ross' comments "reveal the administration's callous indifference toward the federal workers it is treating as pawns." He added: "Secretary Ross, they just can't call their stock broker and ask them to sell some of their shares."

This isn't the first time Trump appeared to be out of touch with how Americans buy groceries. In July the president told supporters at a rally, "you know, if you go out and you want to buy groceries, you need a picture on a card, you need ID."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.